The Seattle Public Library loves to promote books and reading. This monthly column is a space to share reading and book trends from a librarian\u2019s perspective.<\/em>\u00a0<\/p>\n Book Bingo season is a time to reconnect with reading for\u00a0joy and discovery. To help readers across King County find great picks for their Book Bingo board, the owners of West Seattle\u2019s Paper Boat Booksellers join a Seattle Public Library Reader Services librarian with suggestions for three bingo categories.<\/p>\n Learn about Book Bingo and get started on your own board by visiting any SPL or King County Library System location, or by visiting spl.org\/bookbingo<\/a>. Submit your board by Sept. 8 to be entered to win great prizes!\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe thing about our stories is that they haven\u2019t been told,\u201d writes Coast Salish poet and artist Sasha taq\u02b7\u0161\u0259blu LaPointe<\/a> in her\u00a0essay collection \u201c<\/strong>Thunder Song<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d<\/strong> \u201cThunder Song\u201d begins with ruminations on LaPointe\u2019s childhood on the Swinomish reservation near La Conner, Skagit County, and her great-grandmother’s tenacious pursuit of a symphony homage to their heritage at Seattle\u2019s Benaroya Hall.<\/p>\n LaPointe follows in her great-grandmother’s spirit, sharing her name and her determination to be seen despite cultural erasure. Exploring punk rock, queer and biracial identity, Indigenous foodways and the long shadows of intergenerational trauma, LaPointe\u2019s prose creates spaces of counternarrative and reclamation.<\/p>\n Whidbey Island-based author Neena Viel once again brings social issues to the fore in her latest horror novel, \u201c<\/strong>I\u2019ll Watch Your Baby<\/strong><\/a>.\u201d<\/strong> The persistent power of the welfare queen stereotype takes center stage in this layered narrative replete with crime, drama and revenge.<\/p>\n Two timelines \u2014 1974 and 1994 \u2014 introduce two women who know how to get what they want. Lottie Turner and Bless are two sides of the same coin, both striving to hoodwink a system created to destroy them in this pulse-pounding supernatural thriller. Viel\u2019s novel is also a fit for the Horror category.<\/p>\n \u201cD\u2019Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths<\/a>,\u201d<\/strong> by Ingri and Edgar D\u2019Aulaire, is an oversized children’s book that brought Greek mythology to life for generations of American kids. It’s recognized as much for its beautiful lithograph-style illustrations as for its stories. Read it to your kids or read it yourself, if you can find your way back to your inner 8-year-old. Either way, it’s a good time.<\/p>\n It begins with Mother Earth and the Titans, then on to Cronos, Zeus and the rest of the Greek pantheon. Picture mighty Zeus, laid low by a pounding headache, and the blacksmith Hephaestus, grabbing his tools, prying open his father’s skull, and jumping back as the goddess Athena springs from the crack in his head.<\/p>\n The stories started as oral tradition and were shaped by poets and playwrights who picked the version that suited them. They were eventually popularized by writers such as Thomas Bulfinch and Edith Hamilton. Finally, here at the end of the chain with D\u2019Aulaires\u2019, they were smoothed into something palatable to children \u2014 and adults.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you\u2019re interested in a less tidy version of these stories, you could try \u201cCirce,\u201d<\/a><\/strong> Madeline Miller\u2019s bestseller that reclaims the story of Circe, a witch and the banished daughter of Helios, who \u2014 among many other things \u2014 famously turned Odysseus\u2019 crew into pigs.<\/p>\n And speaking of Odysseus, if you have plans to see the new Christopher Nolan movie \u201cThe Odyssey,\u201d<\/strong> we recommend one of our favorite translations of Homer\u2019s epic poem, the acclaimed, condensed edition<\/a> by Emily Wilson. The older Robert Fagles translation<\/a> has also been recently published as a beautiful bookish work of art that is a joy to read and looks stunning sitting on the shelf.\u00a0<\/p>\nPNW Black, Indigenous, or POC Author<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Myth & Legend<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Suggested by an Independent Bookseller<\/strong><\/h2>\n